Hope, Joy, Insight and Surviving Life's Hurts

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Archive | April 2013

One week ago yesterday I received from Amazon my new Kindle Fire 8.9. I was so excited!!! I had wanted one for so long. It’s just as good as the famous Apple IPad but about half the cost.

It took me a year saving my change to get enough money to purchase this Kindle and I was in Heaven. Now I could read all my books, watch movies, keep in touch, write emails and blog posts, etc. It was like carrying my library, office and family with me. All was well with the world.

Thursday came, 7 days into owning this wonderful new “toy” and the unthinkable happened. I had gone to the hospital for my Pentamadine treatment. **Pentamadine is an inhaled breathing treatment to help prevent pneumonia in my transplanted lungs. I really hate this treatment because it tastes awful, makes a person gag and cough. But, it is necessary to keep my lungs as healthy as possible. . .but I digress.

In order to inhale this treatment I must breathe it in front of a big box filter and in a private room so that others don’t breathe the Pentamadine. This box has folding sides and a shelf which are put together in front of me so that I am sitting looking into this box and filter.

As I had done many times before with my “old” Kindle I would set the Kindle on this shelf and read it there. I did the same with my new Kindle Fire. Things were going well and about 5 minutes before my treatment was over I reached over and touched the Kindle Fire to move a page forward and then it happend ~ ~ ~ the shelf collapsed sending the Kindle Fire to the floor and cracking the screen in a big way! OMGoodness! I was so upset, so sad. . .I spent an entire year saving for this thing and now I have a new Kindle Fire that looks like a broken, old Kindle Fire. It works well enough but now I look through a cracked screen with my cracked emotions. . .

As I showed this to my nurse Melissa she was so sad for me. . .then I thought of someone else who was facing more serious damage. My friend and co-worker was having bad headaches for two days. She went to her eye doctor because her vision was getting blurred but he told her she needed to see her physician.

Her physician sent her to the hospital for testing. I was thinking that maybe she was having a stroke but to my surprise and the surprise of all of us who work with her she found out that she had a tumor next to her pituitary gland. The doctors said it was a good sized one, but didn’t believe it was cancerous.

The plan was to do surgery to remove all or part of it. Our place of work was in full prayer mode. For those of you who don’t know or didn’t hear before, I work in a Monastery. The prayers were storming Heaven for this lady who happens to be one of the kindest women I have ever known.

So, the latest news we received is that the surgery went well. She told someone that she feels well and has no pain. Her vision is still blurry, but the doctors are working on that. It may come back on it’s own, if not they will do surgery on her eyes.

This all boils down to perspective. I had a broken Kindle, she had a broken brain for a while. . .My broken Kindle is of no real consequence when I think about my friend and her health scare.

All will be well, yes all will be well, all manner of things will be well. Amen!

This post is very important, in my opinion, because she discusses bodies and church. That’s all I will say about this. I encourage you to read it and gather your own thoughts and opinions. I surely don’t want to steal her thunder, and quite substantial thunder it is!!! Enjoy, SandyO

I’ve been reading N.T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope for several months now (with my internship, my research project, plus school and work, it’s been a slow process). In one section he discusses an idea of the “theology of space.” His discussion mostly revolves around whether or not churches should continue to have buildings.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about church buildings, personally. I was sexually abused in a church nursery as a child, so for most of my life just walking into a church building has had me fighting off literal panic attacks. Zoloft helped that, but church buildings still aren’t my favorite place in the world.

On the other hand, when Abe and I decided we were going to get married, we knew immediately where we wanted that to happen. A little church building in Toledo with a chicken coop out front that has become the closest…

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This evening I attended a Taize’ Prayer Service with my 2 best friends, Linda and Nancy. It was Nancy’s idea since she had gone twice before and thought it would be something that we would like.

For those of you who don’t know what Taize’ prayer is, it is a compilation of songs, written in simple melodies and harmonies that are sung over and over as a chant. It is melodious, meditative and just beautiful for listening and getting ready to sit silently for prayer. This type of song and prayer was developed in Taize’ France in 1940 by a young seminary student, Roger Schultz. He later became known as Brother Roger.

The prayer service lasted about an hour, hour and a half. There was an orchestra and singers, candles, icons, etc. A good number of people came to pray together.

After the prayer service there was a writing workshop offered and of course Linda, Nancy and I attended.

The topic for this workshop was grace. What is it, how do we describe grace, have we experienced grace in our lives.

There was a nice group of people in the circle that we formed and most everyone had something to say about grace. One person said that grace was something that is offered by God and freely accepted by this person. She described it as “buckets of grace” that she felt blessed with.

Another said it was like being rewarded with a small lottery prize win the evening of a day when he witnessed an accident and spent time comforting a passenger while the medics were on their way.

For myself it was a moment so very sweet, a moment that I won’t soon forget. It was the evening that my daughter had just given birth to her daughter. I was so blessed to have been present when all 4 of our grandchildren were born, but this day was something special.

There was my daughter Kelly holding and comforting her newborn daughter Maya. Maya decided that she needed to be nursed, so Kelly began to nurse her. Soon after that my daughter looked at me and told me she was so thirsty. So, I got a glass of orange juice, put a straw in it and began to hold the juice for her so she could drink.

Imagine the picture ~ here I was nourishing my daughter while my daughter nourishes her daughter! What a moment of pure grace!!! I can still see that scene in my mind’s eye and I can “feel” what I felt as I held the juice for Kelly. I remember saying to Kelly, “do you see what is going on here?” Kelly smiled and nodded at me. The graced moment was not lost on her as it certainly was not lost on me.

Each and every day carries within it moments of grace. It is up to us to stay awake and watch for those moments that God gives freely, just for you and just for me!

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This is a story of a very courageous woman and her struggle with the Autism that has struck her son Easton. This is a story of his brother, Keegan who does his best to console his mother and Easton. I applaud them for their courage and compassion. . .

Monday night was not a good night. The worst I have had in a while, actually.

But I learned something about myself, I was painfully reminded of something about Easton, and, most of all, I was incredibly proud of Keegan.

Our routine has been slightly (read: so-much-more-than-slightly) “off” these last several days. We have had a little bit (read: a hell of a lot) going on at our house. Not going into detail on that. The point is: holy crap, we are a little stressed.

I believe all of this culminated into what I’m referring to as the “Epic Meltdown of ’13.”

The boys and I were happily playing outside. Easton would literally stay outside aaaaaall the live-long day if we let him. But, alas, it was time to go inside for bath and bed.

And the Epic Meltdown began. It was more than just crying. It was more than…

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I was at my local clinic to have my breathing test (PFT); for those of you who don’t know what this is it means Pulmonary Function Test.

The waiting room itself was crowded, shoulder to shoulder, there were people coughing and hacking, so being the slightly claustrophobic and germ-o-phoebe I have become since my lung transplant, I decided to move to the check out area to wait. . .there was no one over there and that was just perfect for me.

Who comes along but a woman named Denise who I only briefly met when I stupidly jumped the line that I didn’t see behind me so I could check in. . .she was so very gracious, thank goodness. So minutes later who comes and sits next to me but Denise. She was wearing a great looking necklace which was a golden and enameled child just dangling happily from her chain. . .she also sported very beautiful and colorful fingernails. . .a different color for each fingernail compliments of her grandchildren. They looked awesome!

Denise and I started to talk about many things. . .but eventually we started talking about God and life and attitude. I like this woman, she is on the same wave-length as me and we talked as though we had known each other for years. The conversation was robust, fun and comfortable as we shared many things that we like in common.

We talked about how God puts people in your path for a reason. Sometimes it is just to teach us something and they are gone. . .sometimes they become life-long friends because God wants them to share with each other and their circle of friends what is most important to them and to God.

Denise shared with me that she has 2 sons who are Marines and they have both been deployed in Afghanistan previously and that one of her sons will be deployed at the end of the year. This is so difficult for any parent. But she has faith and knows that God has her and her sons in His hands. Denise relies on the love and faithfulness of God.

We discussed how being anxious and nervous and always wondering what will happen is only wasted energy. . .I know, easier said than done, but truly as mothers and people with lung disease, we understand the power of patience. Not easy, but so valuable.

I told Denise I was reading the Didache. . .she had never heard of it and as it happens not too many Christians have heard of it. This book is really interesting. . .it is small and easy to understand with commentary. I would like to urge you to go to http://www.amazon.com and look for: The Teaching of The 12 ~ believing & practicing the primitive Christianity of the ancient didache community by Tony Jones; author of The New Christians. I love to read and in that love I learn so many interesting things. I think you’ll find this to be a good read.

I want to offer my best wishes to Denise. I hope you see this blog entry Denise. I would love to keep in touch. May you be richly blessed as I know you already are!